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{
    "id": 1502177,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1502177/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 94,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung'wah",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "The question that begs is: When we listened to the President, did he speak to some of these issues? Did he speak to issues that guarantee sustainable development in our country? Did he speak about good governance? Did he speak about integrity, transparency and accountability, even amidst the challenge that he threw to the House on the enactment of the Conflict of Interest Bill? For the record, let me state that it is true that the National Assembly adopted and passed the Conflict of Interest Bill earlier this year, and it was transmitted to the Senate. The Senate enacted a number of amendments, many of which the Departmental Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs has considered and substantially disagreed with. The amendments seek to dilute the Bill. We have, therefore, formed a Mediation Committee. It is on record that when the first meeting of the Mediation Committee was called, not a single Senator was present. I take this opportunity to ask the Senators to be available for the mediation process. If there is a House that is conflicted in the Conflict of Interest Bill, it is not this House. It is the House that diluted the Bill. It is also the House that has been unavailable for the mediation process. I believe Hon. Murugara is ready. We have had discussions with the Leader of the Majority Party in the Senate. I also had a discussion with Hon. Murugara yesterday to expedite the mediation process and reach out to the Chair of the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights in the Senate, so that Senators on the Mediation Committee are available. The President did not just mention in passing if there is any conflict of interest in passing the Conflict of Interest Bill. We should expedite and pass it because it is critical in the fight against corruption. If we expect the President to speak about good governance, integrity, transparency, accountability and sustainable development in the Government, we must act on this Bill. We cannot have sustainable development without acting on conflict of interest. More fundamentally is the directive the President issued from the Floor of this House. I hope officials of the National Treasury were listening to the President on the question of e-procurement. We cannot have transparency in the procurement process if we do not digitise the processes. The President said that we have faltered on the actualisation of e-procurement. That faltering is not in the last 10 years. Since the Kibaki regime, we have always spoken about e-procurement. I am glad the President directed that by the end of the first quarter of 2025, the National Treasury must ensure that e-procurement becomes a reality. It is possible to have e- procurement if we are to deal with accountability and transparency in the procurement of goods and services in the Government. The root cause of corruption across the two levels of Government revolves around two major issues, namely, conflict of interest and procurement issues. If we enact the Conflict of Interest Bill and actualise e-procurement processes in both levels of the Government, corruption will be a matter of the past. Hon. Speaker, by speaking to the issues of sustainable development, the President went at length to enumerate the gains that his administration has achieved in the last two years. There is an appreciation of the Kenyan Shilling against the United States of American Dollas from a high of Ksh162 to a low of Ksh129. Secondly, in managing our inflation, for the first time in 17 years—this is data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) and our development partners—the inflation rate has fallen to almost 2.7 per cent from a high of nearly 9.6 per cent. The rate of inflation drives the high cost of living. In speaking to the issues that Kenyans have spoken very loudly about - like the cost of living and rate of inflation by deliberate investments in production but not consumption - this administration has been able to bring down the rate of inflation. It is largely driven by our foreign exchange rates and the cost of fuel around the world."
}